Frank commentary from an unretired call girl

The Plural of Anecdote

Whenever an obviously well founded statement is made…by a person specially well acquainted with the facts, that unlucky person is instantly and frantically contradicted by all the people who obviously know nothing about it. – George Bernard Shaw

A few months ago a reader asked if I’d grown less patient than I used to be, and I replied that while I certainly hoped I was no less patient with good readers and people who genuinely want my help, “I’ve never been patient with fools, trolls, ninnies, sophists, fanatics and the other assorted riff-raff who attempt to lay claim to my time and energy.” Well, I need to add one more type to that list; I’m afraid I no longer have any patience with people who refuse to understand that the plural of anecdote is not data. Now, my forbearance for such well-meaning but ignorant folks was never exactly Penelopean to start with; even as a teenager statements like, “well, my grandpa smoked his whole life and he lived to a hundred” set my nerves on edge, and in July I published a whole column about people who think that one exception invalidates an entire rule. But lately, I’ve found that my immediate response to comments declaring that I must be wrong about such-and-such because the commenter knows of an exception (which she then proceeds to relate without any corroboration) is to immediately trash it.

This doesn’t quite rise to the level of a new rule; one of the suggestions in “How Not To Get Your Comments Posted” was, “Pretend to be more knowledgeable in my subject than I am without offering any proof whatsoever.“ I suppose that the assertion, “my cousin’s friend is a hooker in Chicago and everybody she knows has a pimp”, doesn’t quite qualify as no proof whatsoever, but neither does it reach the level of credibility required to cause me to rethink four years of research. No, I don’t have a PhD, nor have I done field trials in two dozen cities involving hundreds of respondents. But you know what? Neither have the prohibitionists. And unlike them or some anonymous person’s cousin’s friend from Chicago, I have spoken to or corresponded with hundreds of sex workers and read dozens of methodologically-sound studies in addition to actually being a hooker for years, so please don’t think me vainglorious if I trust my own judgment over theirs.

I’m sure someone will accuse me of simply not wanting to be challenged; please give me a little credit. Not only am I quite aware of exceptions to hooker norms, I even feature them in TW3 or other columns when I encounter them. But there’s a vast difference between “20 witnesses saw such-and-such and here’s the video” and “you just have to believe me”; or between “what do you think about this unusual circumstance?” and “no you’re TOTALLY WRONG because a prohibitionist said so”; or between odd but well-documented phenomena and outrageous claims which violate the laws of physics or stretch the limits of human credulity. Furthermore, reputation helps; when someone who’s been commenting here for months or years and impressed me with his good sense and veracity tells me something, I’m a hell of a lot more likely to give credence to what he says than to a newcomer whose very first act on this blog is to make some outlandish statement in the most belligerent tone possible. If you’re spoiling for an argument or seeking converts for your prohibitionist cult, I suggest you try posting your comment on YouTube or Huffington Post, because it’s highly unlikely it will ever see the light of day around here.

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7 Responses

Reblogged this on abracadabrasite and commented:
Perfectly written. Far too many are over opinionated & all too keen to claim fact on a subject they have very little if any true knowledge off. I posted about my personal experience and feelings yesterday only to be told by a ‘nobody’ that I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about ? ? ? Er hello are you telepathic or just psychic? …….

I’m the first to admit that my knowledge base regarding sex workers – especially in the US – is far less than yours and I have never even formally patronised them so it’s probably less in certain respects than your average bloke.

But I did share a Darlinghurst flat with a changing line up of sex workers for two years in the early 80s, sold drugs to street prostitutes all over Kings Cross and Darlinghurst to support my own habit, worked with pretty unsavoury people who – amongst other things – were pimps and generally hung out with sex workers for much of my leisure time back then. My girlfriend for about eight months of that time was a long time sex worker and many of her friends were too. I also got to know several corrupt cops who drew a fair proportion of their incomes from the sex industry and drug trade, including the detective who my boss was paying to keep me and his other employees out of prison (unless he decided to throw you to the dogs for some reason).

Later – after decriminalisation – my sister-in-law and her sister both worked in the Eastern Sydney sex industry at about the same time I was doing activist work with women prisoners who were in and out of the sex industry for much of their adult lives.

No, I didn’t do any surveys or studies or read extensively from those who have, but nonetheless I have the extremely strong impression that in early 80s inner Sydney, sex workers without pimps were the exception rather than the rule. If by pimps you mean criminal heavies – often police – who took 40%+ of their income to allow them to keep working and stop them from getting busted.

In fact I can even name two men – Abe Saffron and Big Jim Anderson – who I’m pretty sure controlled at least half of the brothels and sex clubs between Kings Cross and Bondi in the early 80s and took at least 40% from all of the girls (and boys) working in them – often more, as the result of ‘penalties’ for breaking their numerous rules. Street prostitution was more often controlled by cops who took similar percentages as well as taking free trade, though their level of control wasn’t ubiquitous. There were quite a few girls who avoided them by keeping a low profile and staying away from the main drags of Bourke St, Liverpool St and Darlinghurst Rd. The boys who worked out of Green Park and the trannies on Darley Street were often bashed and robbed by cops but I didn’t know any who had what you’d call a pimping relationship with them.

All of that changed almost overnight with decriminalisation and while there was still a few pimps around – including a particularly vicious Eastern European gang who pimped illegal immigrants out of Bondi Junction until a local coalition of cops and crims saw them off with extreme prejudice – I would now say they are the exception. A rather small minority so far as I can tell, mostly preying on illegal immigrants in the sex trade.

All of that’s just anecdotes of course, but I can draw on a pretty big collection of them and I’d be very surprised if it’s far from the facts.

It’s not far from the facts. The corruption of Sydney cops extorting money from streetwalkers was the number one reason NSW decriminalized. But your experience is not the sort of thing I’m talking about in this essay, which is by no means limited to pimp-stuff.

Believe me, you don’t know half of what NSW cops were up to then. And claims that they’ve now cleaned up their act are exaggerated, though they’re far less involved in the sex industry these days (Especially since the Police Integrity Commission ‘Operation Rosella’ nailed Commander Mike Lollback for his partnership with illegal brothel operators. Cops that high up are usually untouchable here).

I don’t know if you can get the video Blue Murder over there, but I knew a few of the characters featured and can tell you that in most details it’s true to life to the best of my knowledge – though I’m pretty sure Neddy Smith didn’t kill Sally-Anne (who was a close friend of my ex-girlfriend BTW).

Although Rogerson himself was particularly bad his Armed Holdup Squad was more the rule than the exception among NSW specialist police squads at the time. The AHS organised the armed robberies, the Motor Vehicle Squad ran a large cross-border trade in stolen cars, the Narcotics Squad sold drugs (including to me) and no prizes for guessing what the Vice Squad got up to.
I believe business school graduates call it ‘vertical integration’.

The problem likely at the root of this is that most people do not understand statistics at all. That is what causes them to massively overestimate rare risks (death by terrorism or lightening, the second is being far more likely) and completely ignore real dangers (obesity, traffic, stress, etc.). The same happens in your examples: One hooker with a pimp in a sea of ones without one proves one thing: A hooker can have a pimp, i.e. the idea of pimps is not a complete fabrication. This is in the same sense that some people do win the lottery and some people do get killed by lightening. It does not prove that it is anything relevant at all. It is a large world and freak events do happen.

The problem is that most people still have the mind-set for small tribal groups and are unable to compensate intellectually. They think that it happened to anybody, it can happen to you, for practically relevant values of “can”. If your information is gathered from what happened to anybody in a group of 100 people that you are part of, that is a sort-of valid thing to do (even there, circumstances are very important), but it is not for significantly larger groups.

The best statement concerning this effect I know is by Bruce Schneier (famous cryptography and IT security expert): “If it’s in the news, don’t worry about it. The very definition of “news” is “something that hardly ever happens.”” Most people act exactly the other way round, and that is why there are so many baseless panics and why it is so easy to manipulate people with cherry-picked examples.

I have no better solution than ignoring these morons, as they are usually extremely persistent in their unfounded beliefs. (“But it could happen!”) Unfortunately, a rather large part of the human race cannot participate in rational dialog about risks, dangers and threats due to absence of the rationality required.

Well, that’s tellin’ us! Eee, but yer lovely when yer angry. Just see you with high heels + whip. Anyway, long time no hear, but I still get + enjoy your posts. Meanwhile, as you know we’ve just staved off another attempt to introduce the Swedish mess here at Westminster, or at least we’re halfway through staving it off, everyone’s expecting another attempt in our House of Lords. Any quick* response to this….http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/2014/10/end-demand-fawcett-supports-new-sexual-exploitation-campaign/
…most welcome. [note, Lords don’t appeciate expletives!]
* pref by Monday!

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